A plaid seat...but a nice rattan back.

We were young. We were most of us shirtless, though some had a tendency to burn and thus wore shirts of T. Barefoot? A given.

We were boys. We were out of school. We had an energy that escaped from us, that was forced from our pores (and probably our ears) by the pressure of even more pent up energy being generated. It was summer. It was Florida. We were free.

Had some old bicycles most of us. Mike had a car, a Mustang, him and his dad and his brother had built right there in the garage. Unfortunately, you cannot build a drivers license, at least not a valid one, in your garage, so we had to wait. Mike's dad was the coolest. A catholic (only one I knew well), an ex-Marine (only Marine I wasn't scared of. Respectful, though. VERY respectful.) Mike's Dad had been to Yokosuka, I would find out years later. He was one of the Marines that walked in took it from the Japanese. He said my liberty there was likely better than what he got, which was nuthin'.

So, shirtless or shirted, we bicycled up S. Kings Ave. and across Bloomingdale, which, before it became big houses in fancy developments with even fancier names, the kind of names that just sound pretentious such as "The Estates at Bloomingdale Crossing", was a nice place that more or less could pass for a rain forest. If someone occasionally dumped a dead washing machine in the rain forest. Which they may. I've only seen one rain forest and it was in Puerto Rico. And we never got out of the van.

After crossing Bloomingdale and traversing the 6 blocks or so of rain forest, we came to the bungalows and trailer parks that made up the banks of the Alafia River. Alafia is an Indian word for something. Something that needed a name at the time, though I have no idea what. Maybe a plant. Maybe a mineral. Maybe a tire jack. Just not sure.

When we arrived at the Alafia boat ramp, we would jump off of our bikes and let them lay wherever they fianlly came to a rest. We would run, full tilt, and dive off the boat ramp wall and into the river. It was great.

One time someone, for fun I'm sure, had thrown a picnic table off of the ramp wall and into the river. That day was one you could have rightly referred to me as a head banger. The top of a picnic table, connecting with the top of your noggin, after just breaking the surface of what you have expected to be a cool, refreshing, SOFT river is a bit of a surprise. I knew a few cuss words and used 'em all. Twice.

We always swam across the river to the tree with the rope swing. We would swing and swim, swim and swing. When a family, out for a peaceful outing with the children, would be spotted coming down the river in a canoe, we would climb way up into the tree limbs, hidden, and one of us would get the rope in our hands and then slink in behind the trunk of the tree, and when Darren McDad and the family got within range....down came our shorts and we'd leap out of the tree and swing by them on the rope. Laughing and hollering and shooting moons all the way down.

It was such great fun, except when your shorts would actually come off and start sinking. That sucked. A) Because you'd have to ride home naked (already shirtless, remember?) and B) There was really no reasonable thing you could tell your mom to adequately explain how you misplaced your pants. "Mom, it was the durndest thing. A thug jumped out from behind a light pole and pants-jacked me. Mom...HE HAD A KNIFE!" While that may have worked, it took me 38 years to come up with it. Hardly useful now.

I was going to tell you about the gator and about the snake, but as my own personal hero has pointed out on several occasions, my tendency towards verbosity eats away my time.

I must now go to work. We have 3 appointments today and I may actually earn some cash. If not, well I still got to dress up with a tie and cufflinks, and that means the day already has that going for it. I am nothing if not stylish.

SNAKE!! Haha, out
Ramblin' Ed